Mark's Daily Apple

Coca-Cola Cares About Your Health

It’s the stuff of quintessential irony. Paradox. An absurdity so egregious it’s painful to type, let alone view on the screen. (There’s actual smoke rising from my keyboard….) We’re talking corporate “public health” sponsorships so ridiculous your eyes will fall out of your head. First, a show of hands. How many of you are familiar with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)? Sounds like a thoughtful, professional organization, yes? A group dedicated to noble and intelligent advocacy for good family health, no? Voices of expert reason, rational and practical medical authority, right? A group that would – with sound mind and sobriety – partner with a soda company for a nutrition-focused consumer education program??? Folks, I got my boots on today for a good old-fashioned butt kicking (blog style, that is). Pull up a chair. I’m just getting started.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Biggest Loser… Is the Audience

I watched The Biggest Loser last week – as well as the prior week’s opener, thanks to TiVo. I know what you’re thinking, but, hey, it’s my job and it has to be done. Truth is, I figure it’s about time someone shook America by the lapels and exposed the myths and fallacies in this show, which has become one of the most popular on TV. With all the glowing coverage, the average viewer is starting to think The Biggest Loser somehow represents the indomitability of the human spirit and the triumph of modern bariatric medicine. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a made-for-TV spectacle that has morphed into a cruel hoax perpetrated on the typical overweight person in America who is desperately looking for the weight-loss secret. It shows precisely how NOT to lose weight. Talk about two steps forward and three steps back. A few years ago, I suggested in this post that there were a few things right with the show (I still took them to task for their sponsor choices) but I’ve changed my mind. If this season’s opener, in which two morbidly obese, untrained contestants nearly died trying to race a mile in the heat, is any indication, nothing will do more to prolong the current obesity epidemic than a fixation on the Biggest Loser and its yelling, screaming, puking, crying, collapsing, extreme dieting, six-hour workout mentality. Hell, if I were an obese person watching all this, I’d be thinking, “dude, if this is what it takes to lose the weight, pass me another Twinkie and let’s see what’s on VH1.”

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Weighing the Evidence: Science and Anecdote in Nutrition Studies

I was a science major (biology) in college, yet I have always been a little suspicious of the use of the “scientific method” when it comes to biological systems – especially humans. I guess it started when we were all taught in labs as far back as high school to strictly adhere to the scientific method, which generally goes as follows:

1. Ask a question
2. Formulate a hypothesis
3. Perform an experiment
4. Collect and organize data
5. Draw a conclusion

But from those earliest lab experiences, I found it was pretty sketchy to draw conclusions based on what often appeared to be nothing more than some random set of data points. Weigh the excised thymus of irradiated rats and plot a line that shows the rate of atrophy, etc…I wanted black and white answers, solid trend lines and reliable conclusions but usually all I got was an ill-defined line that was different from what my lab peers got, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. Yes or no, right or wrong was what I sought – but that’s not how science works. It works more like this: the prevailing science is deemed good or acceptable until something or someone proves that it’s not good any more. Hey, that sounds like Conventional Wisdom. (Remember how fats were good for a million years, then they were bad for a few decades, and now they are good again…all based on the latest science?)

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Age of Antidepressants?

Now that we’ve turned the page on August’s Primal Challenge, we’re digging into some of our “regular programming,” including news highlights. We like keeping a finger on what’s new and novel – and occasionally outrageous. This one definitely fits the latter. (Hint: Are you sitting?) A few weeks ago the Archives of General Psychiatry reported the following: “Antidepressants have recently become the most commonly prescribed class of medications in the United States.” Yikes, yowza, criminy, uff da! No foolin’, folks. According to the findings, “The rate of antidepressant treatment increased from 5.84% … in 1996 to 10.12% … in 2005.” Want hard numbers? Approximately 27 million people in the U.S., the report says, used antidepressants in 2005.

Posted By: Worker Bee

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Is the Stone Beginning to Crack?

When all was said and done, yesterday’s post turned out to be a bit of a downer – at least for me. I literally felt the crushing weight of the preponderance of Conventional Wisdom bearing down on me as I wrote, and the light-hearted banter was all I could muster to keep from total despair. Even though I tried to illuminate the conclusion with a glimmer of hope, I almost felt like retreating to some dark dank place to set up shop and live out my days like some Primal Grok-Kurtz amalgam. The locals would whisper and tell tall tales, sure, but at least I’d be free to eat fat, munch protein, and abstain from excess carbs. Maybe Eades would send in a band of hapless recruits to retrieve me. Maybe they’d bear news that the war was ending and, though we may not be necessarily winning, we were at least making it respectable. Or maybe I just watched “Apocalypse Now” again. Have I gone temporarily mad? Perhaps, but that’s what fighting against an entrenched, illogical enemy will do to a person.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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